Carol of Occupations by Walt Whitman

COME closer to me; Push close, my lovers, and take the best I possess; Yield closer and closer, and give me the best you possess.

This is unfinish’d business with me—How is it with you? (I was chill’d with the cold types, cylinder, wet paper between us.)

Male and Female! I pass so poorly with paper and types, I must pass with the contact of bodies and souls.

American masses! I do not thank you for liking me as I am, and liking the touch of me—I know that itisgood foryou to do so.

This is the carol of occupations;In the labor of engines and trades, and the labor of fields, I find the developments, And find the eternal meanings.

Workmen and Workwomen! Were all educations, practical and ornamental, well display’d out of me, what woulditamountto? Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what would it amountto?Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?

The learn’d, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms; A man like me, and never the usual terms.

Neither a servant nor a master am I; I take no sooner a large price than a small price—I will have my own, whoever enjoysme;I will be even with you, and you shall be even with me.

If you stand at work in a shop, I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop; If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend, I demand as good as your brother ordearestfriend; If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome;

If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake;If you remember your foolish and outlaw’d deeds, do you think I cannot remember myownfoolishand outlaw’d deeds? If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite side of the table; If you meet some stranger in the streets, and love him or her—why I often meetstrangersin thestreet, and love them.

Why, what have you thought of yourself? Is it you then that thought yourself less?Is it you that thought the President greater than you? Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?

Because you are greasy or pimpled, or that you were once drunk, or a thief, Or diseas’d, or rheumatic, or a prostitute—or are so now; Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar, and never saw your name inprint,Do you give in that you are any less immortal?

Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching; It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no; I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.

Grown, half-grown, and babe, of this country and every country, in-doors and out-doors,onejust asmuch as the other, I see,And all else behind or through them.

The wife—and she is not one jot less than the husband; The daughter—and she is just as good as the son; The mother—and she is every bit as much as the father.

Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,Young fellows working on farms, and old fellows working on farms, Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants, All these I see—but nigher and farther the same I see; None shall escape me, and none shall wish to escape me.

I bring what you much need, yet always have,Not money, amours, dress, eating, but as good; I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.

There is something that comes home to one now and perpetually; It is not what is printed, preach’d, discussed—it eludes discussion and print;It is not to be put in a book—it is not in this book;It is for you, whoever you are—it is no farther from you than your hearing and sightarefromyou; It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest—it is ever provoked by them.

You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it; You may read the President’s Message, and read nothing about it there; Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the dailypapersorthe weekly papers,Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock.

The sun and stars that float in the open air; The apple-shaped earth, and we upon it—surely the drift of them is something grand! I do not know what it is, except that it is grand, and that it is happiness, And that the enclosing purport of us here is not a speculation, or bon-mot, orreconnoissance,And that it is not something which by luck may turn out well for us, and without luck mustbe afailure for us, And not something which may yet be retracted in a certain contingency.

The light and shade, the curious sense of body and identity, the greed that with perfectcomplaisance devours all things, the endless pride and out-stretching of man, unspeakablejoysandsorrows, The wonder every one sees in every one else he sees, and the wonders that fill each minuteoftimeforever, What have you reckon’d them for, camerado?Have you reckon’d them for a trade, or farm-work? or for the profits of a store? Or to achieve yourself a position? or to fill a gentleman’s leisure, or a lady’sleisure?

Have you reckon’d the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in apicture? Or men and women that they might be written of, and songs sung? Or the attraction of gravity, and the great laws and harmonious combinations, and thefluids oftheair, as subjects for the savans?Or the brown land and the blue sea for maps and charts? Or the stars to be put in constellations and named fancy names? Or that the growth of seeds is for agricultural tables, or agriculture itself?

Old institutions—these arts, libraries, legends, collections, and the practice handedalong inmanufactures—will we rate them so high? Will we rate our cash and business high?—I have no objection;I rate them as high as the highest—then a child born of a woman and man I rate beyondallrate.

We thought our Union grand, and our Constitution grand; I do not say they are not grand and good, for they are; I am this day just as much in love with them as you; Then I am in love with you, and with all my fellows upon the earth.

We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still; It is not they who give the life—it is you who give the life; Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed outofyou.

When the psalm sings instead of the singer;When the script preaches instead of the preacher; When the pulpit descends and goes, instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk; When I can touch the body of books, by night or by day, and when they touch my body backagain;

When a university course convinces, like a slumbering woman and child convince; When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the night-watchman’s daughter;When warrantee deeds loafe in chairs opposite, and are my friendly companions; I intend to reach them my hand, and make as much of them as I do of men and women likeyou.

The sum of all known reverence I add up in you, whoever you are; The President is there in the White House for you—it is not you who are here for him;

The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you—not you here for them;The Congress convenes every Twelfth-month for you; Laws, courts, the forming of States, the charters of cities, the going and coming ofcommerceandmails, are all for you.

List close, my scholars dear! All doctrines, all politics and civilization, exurge from you; All sculpture and monuments, and anything inscribed anywhere, are tallied in you;The gist of histories and statistics as far back as the records reach, is in you thishour, andmyths and tales the same; If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be? The most renown’d poems would be ashes, orations and plays would be vacuums.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; (Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches andcornices?)

All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments; It is not the violins and the cornets—it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, northescoreof the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza—nor that of the men’s chorus,northat ofthe women’s chorus, It is nearer and farther than they.

Will the whole come back then? Can each see signs of the best by a look in the looking-glass? is there nothing greater ormore?Does all sit there with you, with the mystic, unseen Soul?

Strange and hard that paradox true I give; Objects gross and the unseen Soul are one.

House-building, measuring, sawing the boards; Blacksmithing, glass-blowing, nail-making, coopering, tin-roofing, shingle-dressing,Ship-joining, dock-building, fish-curing, ferrying, flagging of side-walks by flaggers, The pump, the pile-driver, the great derrick, the coal-kiln and brick-kiln, Coal-mines, and all that is down there,—the lamps in the darkness, echoes, songs,whatmeditations, what vast native thoughts looking through smutch’d faces, Iron-works, forge-fires in the mountains, or by the river-banks—men around feelingthemeltwith huge crowbars—lumps of ore, the due combining of ore, limestone, coal—theblast-furnace and the puddling-furnace, the loup-lump at the bottom of the melt atlast—therolling-mill, the stumpy bars of pig-iron, the strong, clean-shaped T-rail for railroads;

Oil-works, silk-works, white-lead-works, the sugar-house, steam-saws, the great mills andfactories;Stone-cutting, shapely trimmings for façades, or window or door-lintels—themallet,thetooth-chisel, the jib to protect the thumb, Oakum, the oakum-chisel, the caulking-iron—the kettle of boiling vault-cement, andthefireunder the kettle, The cotton-bale, the stevedore’s hook, the saw and buck of the sawyer, the mould ofthemoulder, the working-knife of the butcher, the ice-saw, and all the work with ice, The implements for daguerreotyping—the tools of the rigger, grappler, sail-maker,block-maker, Goods of gutta-percha, papier-maché, colors, brushes, brush-making, glazier’simplements,

O you robust, sacred! I cannot tell you how I love you; All I love America for, is contained in men and women like you.

The veneer and glue-pot, the confectioner’s ornaments, the decanter and glasses, theshears andflat-iron, The awl and knee-strap, the pint measure and quart measure, the counter and stool, thewriting-penof quill or metal—the making of all sorts of edged tools,The brewery, brewing, the malt, the vats, every thing that is done by brewers, also bywine-makers,also vinegar-makers, Leather-dressing, coach-making, boiler-making, rope-twisting, distilling, sign-painting,lime-burning, cotton-picking—electro-plating, electrotyping, stereotyping, Stave-machines, planing-machines, reaping-machines, ploughing-machines,thrashing-machines,steamwagons, The cart of the carman, the omnibus, the ponderous dray; Pyrotechny, letting off color’d fire-works at night, fancy figures and jets;Beef on the butcher’s stall, the slaughter-house of the butcher, the butcher in hiskilling-clothes, The pens of live pork, the killing-hammer, the hog-hook, the scalder’s tub, gutting,thecutter’s cleaver, the packer’s maul, and the plenteous winter-work ofpork-packing; Flour-works, grinding of wheat, rye, maize, rice—the barrels and the half and quarterbarrels,the loaded barges, the high piles on wharves and levees; The men, and the work of the men, on railroads, coasters, fish-boats, canals; The daily routine of your own or any man’s life—the shop, yard, store, orfactory;These shows all near you by day and night—workman! whoever you are, your daily life! In that and them the heft of the heaviest—in them far more than you estimated, andfarlessalso; In them realities for you and me—in them poems for you and me; In them, not yourself—you and your Soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation;

In them the development good—in them, all themes and hints.

I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile—I do not advise you to stop; I do not say leadings you thought great are not great; But I say that none lead to greater, than those lead to.

Will you seek afar off? you surely come back at last, In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best,In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place—not for another hour, butthishour;

Man in the first you see or touch—always in friend, brother, nighestneighbor—Womaninmother, lover, wife; The popular tastes and employments taking precedence in poems or any where, You workwomen and workmen of These States having your own divine and strong life,And all else giving place to men and women like you.